Sen. Durbin Calls for Extension of Unemployment Insurance in Illinois

October 16, 2009 -- CHICAGO, IL – Fifty thousand unemployed workers in Illinois will lose their unemployment benefits by the end of the year if legislation to extend those benefits isn’t approved by Congress, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) said today.

The extension would provide benefits for an additional 14 weeks for jobless workers in all 50 states, and would add six weeks of insurance for jobless workers in states with unemployment above 8.5%, which includes Illinois. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation authorizing the extension, and the Senate will continue debating the legislation next week.

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“Never in the history of the nation’s unemployment insurance program have more workers been unemployed for such prolonged periods of time. Half of all jobless workers cannot find a job within the first six months that they receive unemployment insurance benefits,” said Durbin. “There are now more than six jobless workers for every job opening in our country, and the unemployment rate in Illinois has reached ten percent.”

With more than 1.3 million Americans, including 50,000 in Illinois, set to lose these benefits by the end of the year, and with 400,000 American families having run out of their unemployment insurance benefits already, including more than 20,000 people in Illinois, Congress must not hesitate to act, Durbin said.

“Today, we are battling the aftershocks of the deepest recession since the federal unemployment program was created,” said Durbin. “Unemployment insurance provides desperate families a helping hand during that gut-wrenching period between the day that the breadwinner loses his or her job and the day that a new job is found. An unemployment insurance check certainly doesn’t replace all of the wages that most unemployed people have lost–far from it. But it at least helps keep their families from going hungry as they hunt for work.”

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Recovery Act’s unemployment insurance provisions have kept 800,000 people out of poverty this year. “It is critical that these unemployment benefits be extended now until the jobs come back that will put unemployed Americans back to work,” Durbin said.

Source: Senator Dick Durbin